News also surfaced that during a conference call with Cashman and team president Randy Levine on Wednesday, Rodriguez told the two, "I don't know when I'm coming back. It could be July, it could be August. It might not be this year."

Rodriguez tweeted Tuesday that Dr. Bryan Kelly, the surgeon who operated on Rodriguez's hip in January, had given him "the green light" to move ahead with his rehab and play in games again.

To add more fuel to the tweet, Rodriguez posted an Instagram photo of him and Kelly talking at the Yankees' training facility in Tampa, Fla.

The back story to Kelly's meeting with Rodriguez is not that the two planned to meet in Tampa, but that Kelly and Rodriguez met by coincidence. The surgeon was sent to check on other players, not Rodriguez. It was also reported that Kelly did not examine Rodriguez this week, which conflicts with the tweet Rodriguez posted Tuesday night.

Another factor: Kelly is not responsible for Rodriguez's rehab process. That is the job of Christopher Ahmad, the Yankees' team physician.

When Rodriguez tweeted he was ready to return, he announced the news without the Yankees' permission—which is against protocol in the organization. Now, the question becomes whether the tweet was true.

"He's not ready for (extended spring training games), that's all there is to it," a Yankees official told Klapisch.

The battle that publicly started Tuesday night was gaining fuel Monday when word spread that Rodriguez was nearing a return, which came as news to the Yankees and Cashman.

Klapisch reported that Cashman spent "several hours" Tuesday trying to contact Rodriguez by phone—both by call and text—and email. Rodriguez didn't respond, which irritated Cashman and helped set up his rant to ESPN New York following the first statement he had heard from Rodriguez all day—the tweet.

The call between Cashman, Rodriguez and Levine was the first time Cashman and Rodriguez had spoken in more than a month, according to Klapisch's report.

Rodriguez's camp was pushing the theory the Yankees are holding back his rehab to secure an insurance claim on his contract. If he really is not ready to return because of the injury, as he is now claiming, he could be trying to take the Yankees—and maybe MLB—for a ride that only Rodriguez knows how it will end.

The New York Daily News reported Rodriguez could be speeding up his timetable so he could declare himself physically unable to perform because of the injury and retire before Major League Baseball can hand down a lengthy suspension based on its findings in the investigation of the now-defunct Biogenesis clinic in South Florida and its director, Anthony Bosch.

If Rodriguez retires because he is physically unable to perform, he would be owed the remaining $114 million on his contract over the next five years.